Management
& secretariat
Table of Contents
Board of Management
Dr. Mai-Lan Le
Vice President of VinFuture Foundation
Dr. Le Mai Lan serves as Vice Chairwoman of the Vingroup Joint Stock Company, in charge of Education. In 2013, she was tasked with setting up Vinschool, a not-for-profit K-12 education system, with the goal of transforming the Vietnamese education system based on the highest international standards. Since then, Vinschool has become the largest education system in Vietnam with a core of quality teachers and robust educational programs.
In 2017, Dr. Le began to lead other major education projects within Vingroup, most notably conceiving and establishing VinUniversity, a prestigious, private, not-for-profit university which aspires to develop talents for the future, to make a breakthrough in Vietnam higher education, and to become a world-class university.
With the goal of becoming one of the top 50 young universities of the world, VinUniversity has forged strategic partnerships with two of the world top 20 universities, namely Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania. VinUniversity’s inauguration ceremony was held on its campus located at Vinhomes Ocean Park, Gia Lam, Hanoi, with a total investment of VND 6,500 billion (approximately USD $285 million) from Vingroup. The institution comprises of Faculty of Arts and Sciences; College of Business and Management; College of Engineering and Computer Science; and College of Health Sciences.
It currently offers 10 degree programs, namely:
Bachelor of Business Administration; Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering; Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering; Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Bachelor of Nursing
Medical Doctor Program
Residency Programs in Internal Medicine, General Surgery , and Pediatrics
Dr. Thai-Ha Le
Managing Director
Dr. Thai-Ha Le is the Managing Director of the VinFuture Prize, VinFuture Foundation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and Ph.D. in Economics from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore where she completed her Ph.D. within two years at the age of 24. Prior to joining VinFuture Foundation, Dr. Le was the Director of Research and a Senior Faculty member at Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management, Fulbright University Vietnam for nearly three years and was a tenured Senior Lecturer at RMIT University Vietnam for seven years. Her primary research fields include energy economics, environmental economics, and applied economics.
Dr. Le is an active researcher who has published over 60 scholarly research articles in international, peer-reviewed journals such as Energy Economics, Energy Journal, Energy Policy, Renewable Energy, Resources Policy, Economic Modelling, International Review of Financial Analysis, Empirical Economics, Annals of Operations Research, Applied Economics, and Australian Tax Forum.
According to rankings compiled by Stanford University and published in PLoS Biology in 2021, Dr. Le is in the world’s top 1% most influential scientists across all scientific fields, and is the only Vietnamese female researcher based in Vietnam in this ranking. She is also the youngest (and the only female) member of the scientific committee in economics for the term 2022-2024 of the National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) (affiliated with Vietnam’s Ministry of Science and Technology).
Dr. Le has consulted for the World Bank, UNDP, Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA). She is a recipient of multiple competitive research grants and fellowships such as the Pacific Trade and Development (PAFTAD) Fellowship for Young Scholars in 2013; the Public Diplomacy Federal Assistance Award by The U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City; Vietnam’s Public Affairs Section in 2018; and the National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) funds for research in social sciences and humanities in 2019 as the principal investigator.
Dr. Le was an external reviewer for the Vici Social Sciences and Humanities programme under the NWO Talent Programme, the Dutch Research Council (NWO). She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Fulbright Review of Economics and Policy and holds associate editor/editorial roles with several other scholarly journals including the Journal of Economic Asymmetries (Elsevier); Journal of Economic Development (sponsored by the National Research Foundation of Korea); Singapore Economic Review (one of the oldest and most respected economics journals in the Asia-Pacific region); and “Springer New Monograph Series, New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives” (Springer Nature).
Secretariat
Dr. Thanh-Hien Ngo Thi
Executive Secretary
Dr. Ngo Thi Thanh Hien is a senior R&D professional with three years of post-doctoral experience on multidisciplinary projects in pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences. She has more than 11 years of experience working in biosafety level 2 and 3 laboratories.
Hien holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from the Department of Oriental Medicine Biotechnology at Kyung Hee University (KHU), South Korea. Her research interests include phytomedicine and the identification of molecular mechanisms of diseases, particularly premature aging and dermatitis. During her 8 years of work in South Korea, she has implemented projects with leading cosmetic and oriental medicine companies.
From 2020 to 2021, Hien was employed as a postdoctoral researcher in understanding the pathogenesis and persistence of HIV-1 in the Q Research Group at the Department of Clinical Medicine and the Department of Infectious Diseases, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Dr. Van-Luan Pham
Executive Secretary
Dr. Van-Luan Pham is a senior R&D professional in water and wastewater treatment processes as well as an expert in overseas business development for environmental projects. He has more than 9 years of experience in academic and industrial environments in Korea and some Southeast Asian countries.
He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the Department of Civil Engineering at Kyung Hee University, which is widely regarded as one of the top 10 best universities in South Korea. He mainly focuses on researching water and wastewater treatment processes through the application of Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) using heterogeneous catalysts. During his 6 years research career, he has been involved in numerous government and Korean enterprise environmental projects.
From 2020 to 2023, Dr. Luan worked for Techcross Corporation of Korea in the role of overseas business development for projects in the Southeast Asia area, those projects were funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank (WB), the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF), etc. In particular, Dr. Luan is in charge of Vietnam’s first public-private partnership (PPP) project (BLT: build-transfer-lease) in the wastewater treatment field. The project value is approximately USD 260 million, and it is expected to benefit 500,000–1,000,000 people each year.
Operations Department
Ms. Huong-Lan Do
Head of Operations
Do Huong Lan graduated Summa cum Laude from Drexel University, United States with a Bachelor in Accounting and Marketing.
From 2018 to 2019, she served as Head of PR – Sales & Marketing for PVF Football Academy and led all cooperation programs, international relations activities within the Academy.
From 2019 to January 2021, she held the position of Head of Communication and Public Relations at Vietnamese Motorsport Association, LLC
(member of the Federation Internationale de I’Automobile, FIA). She was also elected member of the Executive Committee of Vietnam Motorsport Association and responsible for implementing communication activities to promote motorsports in Vietnam. She has also served as the Senior Officer of Science – Technology Application and ESG Compliance within the Environmental Protection Department at Vingroup Corporation.
Prior to her involvement in communication and international cooperation, she had various roles in the accounting and finance industry with Thomson Reuters and Sunoco Inc. in the United States.
Communications Department
Canh-Toan Quach, M.A.
Head of Marketing & Communications
Toan Quach is the Head of Marketing and Communications at the VinFuture Prize, VinFuture Foundation. He holds a Master of Arts in Journalism from the University of Missouri, USA, where he studied as a Fulbright scholar from 2018 to 2020.
Prior to his current role, Mr. Quach worked at Zing News for approximately seven years. His most recent position was as the head of the world news desk and assistant managing editor. He managed a team of over ten editors, content writers, and collaborators, covering a broad range of topics, including international affairs, regional events, Vietnam’s relations with strategic partners, urban developments, and sustainability.
Mr. Quach helped cultivate and maintain fruitful relationships between Zing News and foreign missions and international organizations in Vietnam, serving as a newsroom representative in international contests and inquiries. One of his significant achievements was securing an exclusive interview with the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, during her official trip to Vietnam in June 2022.
Mr. Quach is also a part-time communication consultant, and his most recent high-profile client was Mr. Ted Osius, the United States ambassador to Vietnam from 2014-2017, and currently the CEO of the US-ASEAN Business Council, for his memoir launching project.
Additionally, Mr. Quach collaborated part-time with the United States Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City from 2017 to 2020 to organize workshops to train thousands of students on media literacy skills. These workshops were successfully held at the American Center and several universities.
Mr. Quach finds strong inspiration in VinFuture Foundation’s mission and vision. He dedicates his efforts to sharing compelling stories about VinFuture and its meaningful activities, which aim to create a more equitable and sustainable world for future generations through breakthrough scientific research and technological innovations.
